I've had an MK3S+ for years and even though it's a primitive machine in comparison to the current Bambu hardware I see no reason to upgrade to something else. It just keeps printing whatever I throw at it and the results continue to be very good. In fact, I seem to have better luck with it than the Bambus I sometimes use at various hacker/makerspaces.
If you just look at the numbers (speed, volume, ...) against Bambu hardware they're not as good, but the reliability and simplicity make up for it IMO. The main missing feature is multi-material support, but that's something I'm not really interested in due to how wasteful the current technology is.
But they cost more than Bambu. Most Chinese things tend to cost less than alternatives, for obvious reasons.
Most consumer-level 3D printers are derived from the RepRap project, which was about making a 3D printer that prints 3D printers. So if you want your own printer, find someone who already has one to print the specialized parts for you, add a few standard parts (screws, motors, etc...) and build your own, which you can then use to make 3D printers for others. You can then share designs, improve, etc... Totally in the open source spirit, of course, the software part is similarly open source, usually GPL licenced.
And this spirit is found in most of the consumer-level 3D printing world. With open source firmwares and slicers, easy to modify machines, and standard parts. I think one of the the companies that exemplify this the most is Prusa. They 3D print their printers using their own printers, and open source most for their work.
But then BambuLabs came along, and they have proprietary components, a proprietary firmware and a cloud-based system. Their slicer is open source, they don't really have a choice because it is based on GPL software, but they recently made it harder to use the forked version some people made (namely OrcaSlicer), and they did so via an automatic update. Of course people didn't really appreciate.
But maybe the worst part is that BambuLabs printers are actually really great and popular printers, for an affordable (but not cheap) price. And many people think that from now on, proprietary will become the standard.
If you don't care about that, then BambuLabs printers are maybe the best you can get. If you care, go with Prusa. If you are broke and don't mind getting a new hobby, go for something like an Ender3.
As a big fan of the company I'm hoping this will make them price-competitive to Bambu (or even considerably cheaper) while the tariffs rage. I'm not a fan of the tariffs, but if it gives a boost to the Core ONE launch, welp ... good for them.
This is the correct answer. A lot of people got used to eating shit. Turns out the 3D printer industry was selling you overpriced garbage. Bambu Labs was too good to be true so people were thinking that there must be a catch and now that there is a barely significant inconvenience, they start dog piling the company as if all hell had started breaking loose.
Now look at reality: everyone is building copycats of bambu lab printers, proving that the 3D printer industry was selling overpriced garbage products, because they knew they could get away with it. What people really wanted is the alternative reality where bambu Labs didn't exist and printers still sucked.
Mostly cheap "garbage" actually. Before BambuLabs, manufacturers competed on price more than anything else, using the Ender3 as a model. BambuLabs printers were considered rather expensive. Kind of an intermediate between semi-professional printers like Ultimakers and Ender3 clones. Even the affordable BambuLabs A1 at its base price is about twice the price of an Ender3.
They did shook things up on the high end though, and this, I think, is a good thing.
Buy used Prusa! Their printers are reliable machines, easy to fix or upgrade. I have seen MK3 or even Prusa Mini (which is a newer option) for ~150 EUR. Still great options for anyone who wants to go into this hobby.
If I remember what I saw during the day, and from recaps since then, it was only the Bambu Studio slicer (that is a fork of Prusa Slicer), which was provided with review units but without the source code being released yet. The code was released in time for production units. The only violation of the license is if they did not provide the code to reviewers when asked (which may have happened, but is not as clear cut as what their competitors imply)
This is the only part I was aware of: I own an A1 Mini and having lots of fun with it. Almost "it just works" (not really there yet, in my opinion, but getting really close).
Thanks for sharing the rest of the background. I was aware about the update (which is optional so far) and wasn't too concerned about it, but I understand why other people may be. I wasn't aware of the "open source", printers printing printers part of the hobby; I'm new to it.
I see my printer as a tool, a means to an end. I already have hobbies I want to use it for, I don't need another hobby of tweaking, configuring, modding, trying different brands of things, etc. My A1 is almost there and requires very little fiddling. "It Just Works". If I were younger, around the same age trying different Linux distros was a viable hobby, maybe I'd try more open source friendly printers, but I simply don't have the time or patience anymore.
It would be lovely for the BL printers/AMS to use a colour sensor at the hotend and then you can run a calibration on purges to determine what is an acceptable threshold when transitioning colours and use the absolute minimum purge amount.
I'm not using my AMS much, precisely because I simply cannot stand the waste and the additional print time.